The dual fluidised bed gasification technology is prospective because it produces high caloric product gas free of N-2 dilution even when air is used to generate the gasification-required endothermic heat via in situ combustion. This study is devoted to providing the necessary process fundamentals for development of a bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) biomass gasifier coupled to a pneumatic transported riser (PTR) char combustor. In a steam-blown fluidized bed of silica sand, gasification of 1.0 g biomass, a kind of dried coffee grounds containing about 10 wt.% water, in batch format clarified first the characteristics of fuel pyrolysis (at 1073 K) under the conditions simulating that prevailing in the gasifier intended to develop. The result shown that via pyrolysis more than 60% of fuel carbon and up to 75% of fuel mass could be converted into product gas, while the simultaneously formed char was about 22% of fuel mass. With all of these data as the known input, a process simulation using the software package ASPEN then revealed that the considered dual bed gasification plant, i.e. a BFB gasifier + a PTR combustor, is able to sustain its independent heat and mass balances to allow cold gas efficiencies higher than 75%, given that the fuel has suitable water contents and the heat carried with the product gas from the gasifier and with the flue gas from the char combustor is efficiently recovered inside the plant. In a dual fluidized bed pilot gasification facility simulating the gasification plant for development, the article finally demonstrated experimentally that the necessary reaction time for fuel, i.e. the explicit residence time of fuel particles inside the BFB gasifier computed according to a plug granular flow assumption, can be lower than 160 s. The results shown that varying the residence time from 160 to 1200 s only slightly increased the gasification efficiency, but the reaction time available in the PTR, say, about 3 s in our case, was too short to assure the finish even of fuel pyrolysis. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.